Features

Riding a road-derived Triumph twin in terrible conditions, he beat the ‘pukka’ racing machines – despite the front downtuube of his frame braking. Lyons started racing in 1935, on an aged AJS Big Port, made his Manx GP debut in 1938, enjoyed an association with Rex McCandless and rode a V-twin Moto Guzzi in the…

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Bespoke Royal Enfield Bullet The 1967 International Six Days Trial at Zakopane could only be described as an embarrassing debacle for Great Britain’s National teams. Motor Cycle magazine’s report screamed; ‘ISDT; IT’S EAST GERMANY AGAIN – BRITAIN’S TROPHY TEAM THRASHED IN POLAND’, and that was certainly not overstating the case. Only two members of the…

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You can purchase this image at www.mortonsarchive.com The capitals are as used by Motor Cycling. They added a strap line, this all in capitals, across the top of the page: “WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS RIDER WRITES FOR YOU.” And, over four parts running in consecutive weeks, that’s what Geoff Duke did. While the main point of…

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World’s fastest Triumph (pdf) Rider Bill Johnson is as slim as they come. Yet the light-alloy monocoque cockpit fits him as closely as his underwear. A course of muscle building and he'd be in trouble. Elbow width is a bare 20in. The most Spartan wire padding keeps his backside only 3in off the Utah salt,…

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1963 Velocette Vogue With hindsight, it’s obvious that the Velocette Vogue was doomed from the start. Since 1948 the company’s enclosed LE had been available to a largely disinterested public, and it had nearly scuppered the business when it failed to sell in adequate quantities; only surviving by the skin of its teeth when the…

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Rudge Whitworth Ulster What’s the greatest number of miles you’ve covered in an hour? With 125mph laps of the TT course now established, out-of-the-box bikes capable of clocking close to 180mph and MotoGP racers hitting well over 200mph, we tend to take astronomical figures for granted. Personally I’ve put 84 miles into the hour –…

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Ambassador Supreme Billed as the ‘aristocrat of lightweights’, the Ambassador Supreme brought a touch of class to popular motorcycling on several continents. Its top-of-the-range Supreme model of 1951 boasted features such as balanced Road-Flow suspension and Super Glide transmission, despite its motive power being no more than a ubiquitous Villiers two-stroke single in standard roadster…

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Triumph T20B Super Cub The first 150cc Terrier was delivered in 1953, the Tiger Cub coming the next year. The first year ones had a high-level exhaust pipe, interestingly, though that was short lived. What wasn’t short lived though was an obvious and explicit link between the Triumph ‘babies’ and the bigger models in the…

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During the 1925 Scott Trial, Marjorie Cottle (Raleigh) maintains forward momentum Marjorie was born in 1900, in Wallasey, Merseyside, and in her teenage years she began to share her father’s enthusiasm for motorcycling. He even provided her first road bike – a single speed Premier she was obliged to rebuild from its scrap condition. She…

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1953 Norton Dominator 88 When the Featherbed frame made its bow, little could those who witnessed its triumphant debut have realised that for the next 20-odd years, it would be the benchmark by which others, in motorcycle handling terms, would be judged. And most riders who experienced the thrills (and occasional spills) of Norton Featherbed…

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